"The term human rights, it gets misused. There is a tendency in this country for the words human rights to get thrown about as much as health and safety. Both of them get hopelessly misused."

He added: "When some official, some policeman, whoever, has made some mistake in taking some absurd decision, the first thing they do to fend off criticism is to blame it on health and safety and blame it on human rights. The truth is that someone's made a pig's ear in the office."